Many people have heard the term "color correction" tossed around in hair salons, or seen it on a service menu perhaps. But most people (even many stylists) have never had to actually experience the process. And most people (including many stylist) don't really know what can go wrong, or why, or why it's so dang expensive (I charge $100 an hour with a minimum 4 hour appointment for severe cases, and that does not include a guarantee). So I thought you might like a blow-by-blow description of a member of our staff, Monica, and her recent journey from black, to slightly lighter red-brown. And by the way, it was a full two day process if you want to figure the price tag.

From what I know, she has been coloring her hair black for several years, and in very common occurrence in many stylists life, she was doing it in a way that we wouldn't perform on a client. Like many other professions it's "do as I say, not as I do"! Her hair was on the porous side, meaning the hair is sponge-like, and like a sponge it will suck up a lot off tones (grab), and release a lot of color (fadage), but it won't let go of all of it (staining). To make the situation even better, when she mentioned that she was looking for a true "blue-black" but had never managed to find one, I suggested putting a blue Pravana temporary color over the top. That was the fatal mistake. And following, is the reason we have a policy in our salon that we don't attempt removal of black unless it was a recent, and terribly bad, mistake. Removing an older black is usually not successful, because the color "sets" so deeply you generally don't get a good tone. But what the heck, we're professionals!

Monica started out on her own at home. We had discussed the procedure, she decided to try the Kenra dye-remover (no bleach involved at this point), and then after lifting to a reasonable red tone (when removing black it's pretty much impossible to lighten with a dye-remover past red) she would do a bleach wash, otherwise the dark color molecules will re-oxidize to a very dark brown when applying a toner. At this point in the process she had a decent red, and the job was looking pretty successful. After all that work she took a nap, and woke up with dark muddy green hair.

Now, let me tell you, in 25 years in the hair business I have never seen hair spontaneously re-oxidize so quickly, or at all after a bleach wash, or to emerald-green! At this point we decided we should fix it at the salon. I had an extremely rare half hour break in my schedule that morning, so we did another bleach wash with a low volume activator. Perfect! until about 15 minutes later. Ever seen Elphaba's hair in Wicked? Very dark emerald-green/brown. We tried another dye-remover, with heat. Red...then green. She went home with green hair. I don't like to fail. Don't get me wrong, I do fail, it's the best way to learn, but I don't like to, and I don't quit.

She was going to do more later that evening, and around midnight came the Facebook status update. "Ohhhhh shit". I assumed her hair had fallen out, and didn't sleep much that night, ha! She was smarter than that, however. She had done test strands, and a google search. Pravana "temporary" colors can't be removed. At this point I have to stop and say, what the f@*k?! It can't be a temporary color if it can't be removed! Well, in fairness to Pravana, turns out it doesn't actually say "temporary" anywhere, no wonder I love how long their dark blue lasts in my hair. Lesson learned. The blue color overlay isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It's just somehow managing to fade to emerald-green. There's another fun fact; her hair starts red, and oxidizes to green. I would have thought that was physically impossible. Red and green make brown, where the heck is the yellow in this equation?

Never react, act. It's words I live by in the salon. It's served me well. I've done the Heimlich maneuver on a former employee, I've dealt with a hemorrhaging client unknowingly having a miscarriage, and I've dealt with my own color mistakes. Believe me when I say in the thick of the moment they both feel the same! In the final analysis they are not, of course, but in the thick of it, oh yes.

Our last attempt was to take a pure red pigment through the hair, we used our new Kenra permanent pure red pigment additive to stain the hair, virtually neutralizing the green, then sealed it with an application of Kenra demi color light copper blonde. Viola', or should I say, thank god! A very decent red-brown, shading down in an Ombre fashion to darkest red-brown. Yes in the sunlight it still has a little bit of an ash tone in some of the ends, but overall it's actually rather pretty. To make matters a little more amusing, after the fact of course, I just saw a girl on a bike ride by with the same color! We're trend setters, lol...

update 5-7-2012Monica put another temporary red through it last night, and today it looked stunning. It's a one of a kind color just for her!

I WILL BE DOING A CORRECTION ON BLUE BLACK ON TUES . REGROWTH ABOUT 5 in that has red color then the long blue black hair will not budge!! YIKES WE'LL 130 vol here we go

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David Martin

6/1/2013 02:57:02 pm

Hey Cheryl, good luck with that! I highly recommend starting with fine foils of bleach (different volume for black and regrowth), and then following up with a bleach shampoo. If you lighten first you'll spend most of your time trying to correct the all-over bad tone. Also, shoot for red, that's where you'll end up anyway, lol.

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Emily

6/1/2013 04:17:26 pm

I have a similar issue... Went purplish pink (at a salon) and I've been trying to go back to blonde for months! Everything comes out with a blue tint! I'm so glad to hear I'm not alone... I was thinking about going copper/red to cancel it out but everyone keeps saying it will just look muddy. You've given me hope... Gonna try a strand test tomorrow and see if I have any luck with your method

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David

6/2/2013 11:47:35 am

Hey Emily. Do you know what type of color (purplish pink) was used. I have a feeling it was Pravana. If that's the case, be VERY careful. Pravana colors are almost impossible to remove. I think a strand test of lightener to see if foils would work would be your best option. Good luck, and if you have any questions let me know!

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Marsha Cordry

11/5/2013 06:31:14 am

Hey,
I own a salon and we are thinking of changing over from Redken colorfusion to Kenra color. I know this doesn't have much to do with this particular post, but I was wondering what you thought about Kenra color overall. How is the coverage and does the reds fade much. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

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MM

5/12/2014 06:32:43 am

I found this blog lookong for pravana ash corrector info. Um this whole thing sounds horrible and coming from a pro myself I'd expect a master colorist to know that u can remove temporary color stains with a a color extractor. All this fuss could've been handle easily with a simple bleach and 20vol until it was all least to an orange base. Customers value their money and its experiences like this that make them not wanna go to a salon. And for the price you're charging this is ridiculous.

Hello MM. Let me first say that I wouldn't normally respond this way, but since your comment was delivered in such an amazingly condescending tone, I will in fact indulge myself. I'm hoping your coloring skills are higher than your reading comprehension since you obviously didn't bother to double check what actually occurred before leaving your very helpful tip. In fact, as stated in the beginning of this post, this WASN'T performed on a client, but a fellow stylist who was choosing to do her color herself at home. I was merely giving her advice to help prevent a disaster. In fact, this is a procedure that I usually refuse to offer due to the highly unpredictable results obtained when removing layers of permanent black dye. As it turns out, the Pravana color was the problem we ran into, not the black dye, however. As to your (contradictory) FIRST suggestion that we use a color remover to remove the stain; that's in fact what Monica did. It resulted in a beautiful red tone rather quickly (better than the orange base she was HOPING) for. It wasn't until she finished that it started to revert to emerald green. As to your (contradictory) SECOND suggestion, the next day I suggested we try bleach (10 volume as her hair was much too fragile for 20 volume as you propose). We had the exact same results, as I stated. She chose to do a strand test later that day with 20 volume. While the color did in fact lift to an acceptable tone, it also disintegrated (which is why I suggested she NOT use 20 volume). The final solution of my applying a pure red pigment directly over the green that the color oxidized to, is what resulted in a rather pretty reddish brown, which saved her from going back to black as she was afraid she would need to. As I said earlier, I don't normally reply with sarcasm to professional posts, but really? Snarky comments on a professional blog post? I hope you aren't older than 22 (with apologies to any level headed 22 year olds). Oh, and this stylist, who no longer works with us, still calls me for any color advice she needs. Yes, I know how to value my "customers", thank you very much.

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Iz

7/15/2016 09:05:37 pm

Yes! I felt the same way when I read the comment from MM. Thank u for this funny response, u put it together so well.

virjine

7/16/2014 03:57:53 am

Hello, I have black hair.Been dying it black for maybe a year now. gone from black to red. I use to bleach out my hair to get it red. but I found this color corrector by Kendra. you think this will work to get rid of the black and get the red I want. I was thiking 6RR by Kendra?

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David

7/16/2014 06:19:03 am

Hey virjine, I have had very good luck with the Kenra color extractor. I would suggest one or two full strength application, then possibly a shampoo with bleach and water added to remove the last stubborn color molecules. If you don't do the bleach application (just water, no developer!) you run the risk of the remaining molecules re-oxidizing and muddying the final tone. I love the Kenra reds as well. I'd suggest sticking with the demi-permanent line for your final color. You don't need the ammonia of the permanent line, and you can apply scalp to ends without worrying (too much, depending on your hairs porosity) of the base grabbing. Good luck!

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Jen Kennedy

8/19/2014 11:41:18 am

I don't know if anyone has said this already since I don't have time to read every comment but to remove pravana from ones hair you are to use zero lift developer and bleach for five minutes. That should remove most if not all pravan vivid s as they are semi permanent color

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Jen Bell

9/2/2014 03:09:26 pm

I'm using the Kenra color corrector tonight on my hair with semi permanent and demi permanent direct aplication fashion reds and burgundies throughout. I didn't expect it to work because the semi and demi permanent hair color I have used is a non oxidative color molecule. But my test strand is looking good, its a pale orange. I wanted to share, on the Kenra website, directions for this product state that a low volume developer be run through the hair to see if door reoxidizes (meaning it wasn't all washed out). So regarding comments on whether lightener should be used after.....with the application of the developer you should be able to process as as normal hair at the given level if color isn't showing oxidation. Thanks.

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angel

9/14/2014 07:38:53 pm

Hi so I also made a pravana mistake. I go to beauty school and every one of my friends convince me to cover my level ten blonde hair. So I went with vivid green and neon blue. Well I miss my blonde hair again. I know with vivid you can't remove Anne. With neon I herd lighter with water mix will help fade it. I really don't want a darker color is there anything I could do to speed up the " fading " process ?

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heather

10/5/2014 08:49:35 pm

This reply is geared toward MM....Pravana first off is NOT a temporary color stain..it is a DIRECT DYE which CANNOT be removed with a color extractor. Before bashing others maybe YOU should learn something. You also CANNOT use bleach with developers to remove them because it pushes the color deeper into the cuticle. The there things that work best (still not removing all but a great portion of direct dye color) is to do the following....first try a MALIBU TREATMENT and leave them plastic capped under dryer for the maximum allowed time. Rinse shampoo condition. You can also do what's called an acid shock where you put lemon dish detergent on the hair plastic capped under dryer for about 35 min. Rinse shampoo condition.....and last but not least you can use (ex. MATRIX SOCOLOR CLEAR) with 10,20,30 vol developers. All of these methods help remove direct dye pigments such as Pravana vivids, PM Inkworks, Manic Panic etc.

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Erin

2/2/2015 01:10:56 pm

I ran across this article looking for someone else that had a similar experience to what I and my stylist had with my hair. I have naturally dark brown hair and have been dying it a level 2 for five years, mostly to cover grays. My stylist is very experienced in color removal and correction and was confident she could get me to a rich brown and balayged blonde highlights by color removing my black and then toning with a brown color and using bleach for the highlights. We did two rounds of color remover and my hair was a bright orangey red. she then put the bleach on my hair for the highlights and boom!....back to black it went! We were both shocked! Neither of us had ever seen bleach actually turn hair back to black. I'm assuming what you've described here is the same sort of thing that happened to me. Needless to say, I'm just back to a level 2 again because I was too scared to try anymore for fear of horrible damage to my hair!

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alex

3/10/2015 03:23:09 pm

thats so funny, i had blue pravana all over my hair for about 7 months and it had hardly faded at all (super weird right?! so frustrating), and at my salon today we tried out the pravana color extractor in an attempt at going lighter for spring and we got it to a super light blondish green pastel color, and now (hours later) its teal! a super beautiful shade of teal so im not annoyed at all, so much prettier than what i left the salon with lol but then i curled some and they went back to that super light green color. im just waiting to see if the curled bits turn teal again. im totally not complaining though, that color remover did a lot more than i was expecting

So, I have a quick request for your suggestion. My client, (also my daughter), who has a natural level 7, has been going to about a level 4 with an ombre to fairly bright red. Her hair is about chin length on one side, shaved on the other. Here's the question, I've made her wait almost a year since we bleached her to platinum last summer to bleach again. She wants galaxy colors. My plan was to use pravana, but I know her and this will not be what she wants for good. Since these colors don't come out, what would you recommend I use to give her the purple, pink, teal, blue that she wants without making it impossible to change? Thank you for your advice!

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David Martin

6/5/2015 01:29:09 pm

Hey Jennifer, if you're looking for something that will last as long as Pravana, there's not much. For my personal color, and the colors I use on my clients, I work with Joico. I love their Cobalt Blue for me, and their other tones work really well, and are easy to remove with a little bit of bleach and water. I recently did an aqua blue/green color on a client with naturally grey/white hair, and she was thrilled, and it lasted for several weeks without pre-lightening! I've also experimented with the Matrix party colors with similar success.

Good luck to you and your lucky daughter!!

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Jennifer

6/16/2015 01:09:52 am

Thank you so much! I'll definitely try the joico first! I'll send you a picture! :)

Barbara Casebolt

7/1/2015 01:14:04 pm

What a great story! I own a little shop that you may know of. It's located inside a Chiropractor's office in downtown Liberty Hill. I have recently been using what I call "fun" colors. I was wanting to know if anyone has had trouble with the Kenra red fading into the shampoo bowl? What did you do about it? This is what I did.....I love Scrupples to lift with. I added Olaplex to my mix. After I get the blonde to a banana color (like the inside, not out) I shampoo out the highlight, blow hair dry and then foil in the red. The directions say 20 min under dryer. So, I did that. You don't need to shampoo after and there was nothing on my hands. I was assuming the color would look great. After I dried it, it was faded looking. I want to know if I can safely leave the color on longer?

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David Martin

7/2/2015 03:06:47 pm

Hello Barbara. So, when you say color under the dryer 20 minutes, I assume you are using the Kenra Creative line? Honestly I haven't tried it myself, I use Joico. My colleague Michelle has used it pretty successfully though, so it seems to be a decent product. However, the one thing I know for sure: when using primary/funky colors, you have to SATURATE the hair. In fact, you often need to go in and muddle the color in the foil after a bit of processing to make sure it's COMPLETELY SATURATED. I've had plenty of disappointments taking off the foil, only to find it's not as completely processed as I'd imagined.

One other point; and I suspect this might be the culprit, if you are trying for a bright red, you don't want to lift the hair past the orange stage. Fun colors are designed to have the correct underlying pigment, ie...

Reds - lift to light to dark orange (basically the same or one level lighter than the desired finished tone.

Yellows and pinks - lift to pale yellow (outside of banana or lighter)

Blue, purple, lavender, grey, or platinums - pale yellow only! (inside of the banana). Any yellow with these tones will push them to greenish/ashy tones.

If this is the case (which I suspect from your inside the banana info), you should reapply the color a second time, and most likely the color will hit the mark. If not, you might need to fill it with Kenra demi 6c, and then apply the primary red again.

Please let me know how it turns out; I'm very curious!

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Barbara

3/7/2017 09:10:18 pm

Thank you so much! You were so right! I've been using your address and my results sre beautiful!

Shay

8/4/2015 01:26:06 pm

Hey David! I colored my hair blue (voodoo blue by manic panic) my base was a orangish yellow color, I didn't tone my hair and I didn't want to bleach it. Long story short the color is fading now and it's green I tried baking soda w/ head and shoulders and some of it came out..I bought Pravana Color Extractor today and tried it, it worked for literally 3 minutes!!! It came out a Carmel blonde (or brown, i dont know the classification of it exactly) Then as soon as my hair shaft got cold it started turning green again!! I did it twice and it keeps turning this ash green color that it was before and I have no idea what to do...I don't want to bleach it :/

Hello Shay, sorry for the delay in response! Unfortunately, I don't have any great news for you. I'd be very careful with bleach, possibly just bleach and water and a strand test. Otherwise, I think your best advice is going to be to try the suggestions made by Heather in her very nice earlier comment. Hope it all turns out beautiful in the end!

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Author

David MartinOwner, master stylist and master colorist of 24 years, and educator, formerly with ISO/Joico.Please post questions, comments and suggestions. I love to work, and educate, with an open dialogue!-DavidCobalt Salon & Gallery